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Disclaimer: This article mentions sexual assault.

Stand With Survivors Syracuse University, a student group that aims to fight sexual misconduct on campus, shared a manifesto and letter to the campus community on Tuesday.

In the letter, SWSSU wrote that the university’s campus has a thriving rape culture. SU’s administration, the letter writes, perpetuates this culture.

“SU has not only failed to properly address issues of sexual misconduct on this campus, but they have tried to circumvent liability at an unacceptable amount of opportunities,” the organization said in the letter.

The group also directly called out Chancellor Kent Syverud. The chancellor said in a recent University Senate meeting that part of SU’s issues with sexual misconduct has to do with only 5% of students who are sexually assaulted while at SU filing their assault with their university. SWSSU said that the chancellor’s response was an example of victim blaming. 

 

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“(The statement is) a poor attempt by our chancellor to deflect responsibility for SU’s administration’s role in the unsatisfactory handling of sexual misconduct reports,” the group said in the letter. “We must ask ourselves, ‘Why did 95% of people who experienced sexual misconduct not report it to the university?’” 

SWSSU’s manifesto is broken into three sections: housing policies, preventative action and specific reforms of administrative processes.

Official SWSSU Calls to Action by The Daily Orange on Scribd

Demands from the group include SU working with third-party organizations such as Vera House and Callisto and mandating the removal of Department of Public Safety officers who fail to report sexual misconduct to the university’s Title IX office.

The first item listed in the manifesto demands that students who have an ongoing investigation against them relating to any form of sexual misconduct must be relocated off of SU’s campus. Along with this, the group demanded an extension of no contact orders. The expansion would prohibit someone accused of sexual misconduct from accessing community spaces shared with the survivor, such as student organizations and residence halls. SWSSU called for SU to give the survivor priority in remaining in these community spaces, classrooms and housing. 

Part of the demands would also alter SU’s procedures in helping survivors of sexual misconduct. The group called for both the Barnes Center at The Arch and SU Ambulance to provide “comprehensive” date-rape drug tests and rape kits to anyone who believes they may have been drugged or sexually assaulted.

Many of the group’s demands also related to SU’s Greek life. On Sept. 22, students across campus protested sexual assault allegations at an array of Interfraternity Council chapters.

SWSSU demanded that potential new members of any Greek organization must attend a seminar on consent, anti-rape culture training and relationship health. The group said that this seminar would be in addition to a similar seminar it demanded every student must take every two years. Both seminars would have an exit exam that students would be required to pass with a 100%. Although most students are able to retake the test an unlimited number of times, the letter reads, if potential new members of Greek organizations don’t pass, they must abstain from recruitment until they pass the exam, which they can retake the following semester.

Finally, the group called for the reopening of The Advocacy Center, which was closed in 2014 because of “legal reasons that change had to occur,” Syverud said at the time. Its closure sparked an 18-day sit-in at Crouse-Hinds Hall from a coalition of over 50 student organizations led by THE General Body. 

The list of 18 demands ends with the organization asking a series of rhetorical questions.

“How much are we worth? What is the price of a human life? At an institution that is flooded with funding, there is no excuse to continue this abuse,” the group wrote. “We know that the university has the capability to enact ALL the demands listed in the SWSSU Manifesto. We will no longer go unheard. We will no longer be silenced.”

The group shared over Instagram that the manifesto would reach “faculty levels” at some point on Tuesday. 

At the conclusion of the manifesto, the organization provided a link to a Google Form that acts as a petition supporting the list of demands.

CLARIFICATION: The general student body must take the seminar on consent, anti-rape culture training and relationship health every other alternating year, or every two years. Additionally, potential new members of Greek life must wait a semester before taking the seminar’s exit exam again if they do not pass.

Published on October 26, 2021 at 9:50 pm

Contact Kyle: [email protected] | @Kyle_Chouinard